the world is quiet here
by Owl Knight
Summary: There were only four moments. You wasted all of them. Shiomiya Shiori, Kumagawa Misogi. KamiNomi/Medaka Box, before everything started to happen.


The world is quiet here.

* * *

><p>She stares at the boy for long, long time. The dark atmosphere he radiates is palpable. Only at the age of three she would have the spirit and audacity to run away so obviously. But she does come back and apologizes sincerely. He's rather taken aback. He feels the fear coming off of her, creating an aura around the shy, blushing girl. The problem is that she ran away yet came back to say sorry. Not one person he knew would do that. He peers intensely at her. Nothing special, really. Not Abnormal, barely edging into Special territory. He tilts his head. What made her come back to him, to apologize? Is she truly that polite?<p>

She edges away slightly. The staring is a bit creepy. The way he looks is a bit creepy. The feeling around him is a bit creepy. The silence lies on her shoulders like twenty copies of _Anathem_. She is here for a different reason. Speech therapy, her parents tell her. They sent her to the wrong building. Instead of learning how to speak, she is going to be examined for any special abilities that she does not have. She is scared of everything going around her, whispering _'Busy, busy, busy'_ with a dead fervor.

He is still surprised. Her quietness blends in perfectly with everything else. Except that she is still yet trembling with reasonable anxiety. But then, before he can say anything else, her parents come rushing in. The father is normal, capable of becoming a Minus, however, and the mother is an Abnormal. She is whisked away, going to the correct building. He waves absentmindedly with the ripped-and-stitched plush bunny. She looks back with an innocent, airy glance laced with regret.

* * *

><p>The air is dark and crisp. The cold nips at him with sharp teeth.<p>

The house is warm and soft. The birthday happens with no bumps.

He wants to go into a loving house, with overly warm and affectionate parents.

She goes outside. The atmosphere is suffocating with her overbearing parents.

He bumps into her. He's only eight years olds, but he'll turn nine in 4 months. He smiles with a dark undertone. The girl looks so happy.

She bumps into him. She's turned eight today, but she doesn't feel any different. She doesn't smile back. The boy looks so angry.

He's not sure how he got here, away from his home. So far away, with his superficial smile and way of life. Only today, only today.

She doesn't know why she's outside, away from her family. So near to them, yet so far away with her timid nature. It will last forever.

They glance at each other. They grin (genuine for him, cheerful for her) depressed, alone, and understanding things far beyond their age. Acting far beyond their age level. They are in a mutual understanding as of now. For this short while, they know each other intimately. If this is happiness, then this is enough.

He wants to befriend this non-Minus.

She wants to know this arcane person.

As they part ways, they hope fate will bring them together again.

They don't even know each other's names. They don't remember what they look like.

It's not their problem. Not until they realize it.

* * *

><p>The summer is sweltering. A girl, of ten years of age, feels almost irritated with the heated days of this summer in this July. The hazy heat filled days with cicadas and mayflies are rare like snow on a flat plain in a country near the equator. She sighs. She wanders to a particular nowhere. There is a boy in this middle of nowhere, and it oddly suits him. She gives an unbalanced, dizzy wave at him. Strange, but stranger things she has done.<p>

He loves this middle of nowhere. His birthday was a couple of months ago. Being eleven is fun (it isn't fun at all). The heat washes over him like a fresh breeze from the depths of hell. He loves hell and thrives in it. He sees the girl, and waves back much more enthusiastically. The girl, he thinks, is unusual. Not too many people would wave to him, with his negative will seeping out of him so strongly. He smiles so happily at her. Walk toward me, he thinks. Walk toward me, and learn about pain and suffering and all things awful and bad. I even have the greatest evils, ignorance and apathy, just for the whole of humanity, he thinks.

She walks toward him, silent. Tilting her head, she moves airily, like she had no idea what she's doing.

He welcomes her with a bright, unnatural smile. He lights up with energy of a thousand stars. He has no idea what he's doing, but he feels like wrecking this girl's life.

She gazes at him with hazy, cloudy eyes. The heat is making her head swim in the clear, blinding sky. She smiles, glazed over and says _"This heat...makes you want...pass out..."_

She faints.

He panics.

He didn't want...What is this? He quickly steals the girl's phone, calls 119 and gives the address of the middle of nowhere. He leaves before he can be blamed for anything. He erases this from the depths of his memory. It doesn't work at first. But even the worst of things can disappear.

When she wakes, she hardly remembers anything of the heat filled day. She doesn't want to remember anything. Just trying to recall the day makes her shiver because the boy...The boy radiates something she does want not to experience. She snaps out of the reverie and listens to her parents yell at her.

* * *

><p>The boy loves swinging on the seats suspended from chains. Swings, they were called, because people were uncreative like him. Maijima City is a strange town for him. His mother and father were on vacation from their job. What they did, he couldn't tell anyone. But this is nice, spending time in this peaceful park. He gave no one a dark smirk. Peace didn't exist around him.<p>

A young girl with dark hair and dark eyes sat on the bench near the swing set. She holds a book in her hands, studying for middle school entrance exams. The boy gets up and glances over her hunched shoulders. She jumps in shock, stuttering out words that didn't make sense. They are disjointed. He smiles, trying his damn hardest not to look unpleasant and negative. She calms down, but shakes a little, hardly visible. She smiles nervously at him. It's as if she can sense his desire to please, the desire that is buried under his negativity atmosphere that is so naturally radiated. She treats him as if he is another normal person. He wonders if this is normal for her or if she was doing this on purpose so she seems polite.

She holds her head down, silent. A bright red blush spreads over her soft, small face. Her short hair brushes her shoulders. The girl thinks rather vaguely that she should cut it soon. The boy, who fills his young head with stupid ideas by reading _Shounen JUMP_, thinks that the other youth is cute with her red flush on her cheeks. Then again, he is starting to think every girl is cute. Especially Anshin'in-chan, with her very cute face (it was in fact the cutest face in the world). But this girl comes very close to the cutest girl in the world. He wonders how it happens.

This is the first time a boy she didn't know was really around her. He is clearly not from around here. Her heart is pounding, and her head is getting light-headed and dizzy. She is confused. He smiles even brighter. Chaos fuels him, and confusion is a small part of chaos. Is this love, he thinks happily? Love comes easily, and he falls in with no lingering regret. She will 'break his heart'. If he ever knows her name. But Love only knows emotion. He laughs internally. He's an idiot, but he likes being an idiot. He has to enjoy it. He can't be anything else.

She feels only nervousness. She's always nervous around people. They stir up fear in her. What this feeling is, she doesn't know and hardly cares. She just wants it to go away so she'll stop being an embarrassment. She accepts that she will always be shy and dislike being around others. It's stupid of her.

Busy, busy, busy. The world is nothing right now, for the two children. They are raveled in their own problem. After all, the path of fate will only give them no more chances at meeting. The two have destinies for other stories. The Earth continues to spin with its natural complexity. Busy, busy, busy.

He is fourteen, barely. She is thirteen, one of the elder in her classes.

The boy is the Student Council President at Hakobune Junior High Middle School with the help of his beautiful Vice-President. He hopes to run the school down into the ground. Zero approval rating is his goal. The people are so naïve and he is having some twisted fun with the students.

The girl is hoping for a scholarship to Maijima Private Junior High School, and then she will (she's putting so much hope into this, don't take it away, please) get into Maijima Private High School, on the East Side of campus instead of the West Side. She is wishing for something to change.

The girl flashes a boy a weak smile, feeble like the girl herself. He likes the smile. It is weak, breakable, with a touch of caution that he was not unfamiliar with. It is all the bad things in the world. The quiet faults that sneak up on you, never warning you until everything shatters and rots and dies, like the happiness of the people around him. The boy smiles brightly, like a thousand suns.

She moves away, just a bit. The boy touches the book on her lap, trying to see what she's studying for. She gets up suddenly, flushing, and turns. Running, running, running away from him. He stares at her back as it becomes farther and farther away from the park. It looks a bit familiar, especially when she looks back with a trace of regret.

* * *

><p>The end is the beginning.<p> 


End file.
